Quarta didn’t hear the rest. He clenched his fists, rage boiling up within him.

It was unfair. Why did this always happen? This was why he didn’t want any more relationships.

He could never keep anything precious to him.

“John, don’t-” Zero started, but Quarta waved him away.

“Shut up,” he growled, his body tensing up.

“What if it’s a trap? You have no idea what you’re walking into!”

“To hell with traps!” Quarta yelled. “Does it look like I have time to think about stupid stuff like that?”

“You never think!”

“Do you think this is a time to be thinking?!” Quarta roared, blind to everything but his goal.

He pushed through the crowd, not caring about who or what he was hurting to press forwards. A royal guard noticed the commotion and yelled, but Quarta simply engaged him for a brief ten seconds before knocking him out before continuing on his rampage. There was a cry of outrage from the people, but Quarta wasn’t thinking. He had only one goal in his mind. It was to find them.

“Hey! What are you doing?” a passerby yelled. Quarta glared at the man and lashed out, breaking multiple ribs. The man fell to the ground, writing in pain, and the people yelled.

That was right. Quarta was never a “good” person. He was someone who simply worked towards a certain “goal.” He was neither good nor bad. He simply did what benefited him.

“Where are they?!” Quarta yelled.

The priests of the god Solaria, who served the goddess Celestia. They weren’t exactly known to be corrupt or anything like that, but they did deal harshly with demons.

Anyone would. It was only fair. Demons were a threat to humanity.

However, Quarta didn’t care. Prota could have been a terrible threat that had the potential to kill the whole planet, and he wouldn’t care. He would kill them. He would kill the men who took her, regardless of their values or morals.

[As your emotions heat up, the Fourth Wall protects you from pain.]

Quarta’s left eye lit up bright, his body also faintly pulsating red, but it wasn’t enough. He eventually reached a hilltop, isolated from everyone else. His breath was heavy as he leaned on his knees, regaining his energy.

After a while, he punched into air as if trying to smash through a wall. There was a shattering sound as it looked like reality itself was a glass pane, a hole appearing in the middle of nowhere. Quarta reached in, and pulled a glowing red knife out.

“The tenth seal,” he said with grit teeth. “Will now be broken.”

There was a large bright light that emanated from his core as he plunged the knife into his chest, his body absorbing the knife. He yelled as the pain permeated through his body.

It wasn’t just the pain of the knife entering his body. The seals placed in his body were designed so that if his [Fourth Wall] ability, an ability that negated pain based on the strength of the user’s emotions, wasn’t active, his mind would snap from the pain and he would die a painful and horrible death. Even with the pain reduced, it still felt like his limbs were being twisted from the inside, rung out like a cloth, his stomach feeling like someone was forcibly ripping his intestines out. His head felt like it was being split open with an axe. He fell to the ground, heaving. Finally, it was over. He spit the remaining acidic taste out of his mouth, panting, then finally got up and wiped his mouth.

His entire body was glowing. The amount of power coursing through his veins was incredible; the wind picked up around him, causing his scarf to flutter in the breeze.

He tapped the side of his head. “Power: x1000000”

Then, in an instant, he vanished, leaving a crater behind as a sonic boom split the night sky.

~~~

Prota trembled. She was stuck inside a cage being towed by two horses, galloping at breakneck speeds. Two figures wearing white cloaks and hoods rode the horses, whispering between each other. Looking at them, she could tell they were both extremely powerful, with brighter mana cores than anyone she’d ever seen before. Looking at her map, they’d taken her somewhere she’d never been before, but it was doing a good job of charting where she was now.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” one whispered.

“Of course, the head priest himself said the goddess has ensured our mission will be successful.”

“But… all this for a little girl?”

“She’s a demon, remember that! A demon! Do you want to see another catastrophe happen?”

“...still, it doesn’t feel right.”

She curled up in a ball, terrified of what these men were going to do to her. She considered absorbing their mana, but what would that do? She didn’t know how to use magic. Besides, if they felt something was off they would probably kill her immediately, and that wasn’t something she exactly wanted.

“Hey, do you hear something?” the first figure whispered.

“Huh? Like what?”

“Like… something falling?”

There was a loud crash as the ground in front of them was pulverized. Both figures coughed, fanning the dust that clouded everyone’s vision away. From the dust came a shadowy figure glowing bright red, a light coming from its eye like a lazer.

Quarta was a sight to behold. His scarf was over his mouth, swaying in the wind, his hood up so that only his eyes could be seen. The bloodlust emanating from his was so strong one could practically see it with their naked eyes.

“Who- who are you?” the first priest called out.

Quarta just took a step forwards. The pressure of his aura cracked the ground.

“S-stop! We are priests of the church of Solaris! Taking action against us means taking action against the church!”

Another step, another crack.

“Stop! Did you not hear us? We are simply protecting the people! This demon needs to be destroyed before it can cause harm!”

Quarta just stood still, scanning the area. His body was tense, but upon seeing Prota alive, there was an ever so subtle shift in his posture, loosening up a bit.

“I’m giving you one chance to let her go,” Quarta said. His voice was normal, and yet just the sound of it carried so much authority that the priests almost turned around and unlocked the cage.

“I- I cannot do that,” he said. “If you are telling us to let this demon go, you are against the church! You are allowing the deaths of thousands!”

They both unsheathed their weapons, holy swords radiating a holy aura, a weapon perfect for fighting the undead. They infused their bodies and swords with hot fire, standing at the ready.

A hero would have hesitated. The priests clearly believed that what they were doing would protect thousands, if not millions. How could a hero not be sympathetic to that?

Quarta, however, wasn’t a hero. He simply didn’t care. The priests had committed an unforgivable sin, and so to him, they were already dead. Nothing they did would redeem them, because to Quarta, there was no “right” and “wrong” anymore.

With a cry, they simultaneously launched themselves at Quarta. They were so fast that to the average person, it would’ve seemed that they had teleported, but Quarta was faster.

“Surprise,” he whispered, reappearing behind one of the priests, reaching out and grabbing the man by the throat. The other priest didn’t even have time to respond, so quickly did Quarta complete the movement. He leapt up, power building up in his arm as he spun in the air, slamming the priest into the ground, creating a large crater that sunk in two meters deep. His body lit on fire as he crashed back down like a meteor, practically incinerating the already injured priest.

He got up, his eye shining through the dust.

“You- you-” the remaining priest stammered. “Who are you?”

“I…” Quarta said, standing up and flexing his fingers. “...why should I tell you?”

The priest, terrified, charged in, slashing away. With a single movement, Quarta caught the blade and crushed it, the blade smashed to bits in a second. His hand was cut in the process, blood spilling everywhere, but he didn’t care.

“What do you want? Why are you protecting her? She’s a demon! We have to kill her now!” the priest yelled, terrified. Could it be…

“Are you the demon lord?”

Quarta laughed. “Demon lord? Do I look like a demon lord?”

He did, actually, with a body that appeared to be made of living flames, a bright red eye that pierced through the darkness, his face painted with blood as his body practically shook with energy. The priest’s legs shook in fear.

It wasn’t that the priest was a bad fighter. He was actually comparable to an A class adventurer. The church wasn’t stupid or arrogant. They wouldn’t send weak people to deal with the subjugation of a demon. The other priest, too, was rather strong. In fact, he was stronger than the priest Quarta was dealing with right now. So it wasn’t that they were weak.

Quarta was simply too strong.

Most people would have barely been able to see the fight going on, so fast were they moving. The heat of the fire radiating off of Quarta would have turned most people to ashes by now, and yet there Quarta was, an unreadable look on his face as he walked forwards, not even bothering to approach with speed.

With one last effort, the priest lunged with his sword with terrifying speed, directly at Quarta’s head. Quarta dodged, sidestepped, and with a single strike snapped the priest’s back, then raised his arm and clenched his fist.

“Quantum Break!” Quarta yelled out as time stopped. The world went grey. He picked the sword out of the priest’s hand, turned it around and shoved it into the man’s head.

Just like that, the man fell dead to the ground. There was no pity or regret in Quarta’s eyes. Like the drunkard from before, he viewed the two dead bodies like objects that needed to be disposed of rather than “humans.” There was no satisfaction, no elation, just the cold feeling of a job that’d been completed. With nothing to target, the rage slowly left Quarta’s body until there were no feelings left.

Just a void.

His body stopped glowing as he ran over to Prota’s cage.

“...Prota? You there?” he asked worriedly. There was no response.

Prota knew she shouldn’t be afraid of her Quarta, but… seeing how rageful he’d been, his bloodlust and insanity, how quickly he’d torn apart two people whose strengths she’d never seen before… it was terrifying. Most humans would have fainted at that point. Prota, however, hung on only because she trusted Quarta. However, despite that trust, she couldn’t control her instincts, and so once the cage was open, her legs shook before carrying her off.

“...” there was a sad look on Quarta’s face as he chased after her.

~~~

Fifteen minutes later, he finally found her shaking in some tall grasses.

“Hey. I’m sorry,” he said, panting. “But we should really go home now.”

The usual warmth in his voice was gone. It was like that of a husk now, empty and hollow.

“...” there was nothing to be said. She wiped her eyes, but both of them didn’t know what to say at that point. Maybe there was nothing to be said.

She let him pick her up, placing her on his shoulders as they began the long walk home. There was a lot to think about. How had he done that? Why was he so powerful? Who was he? She didn’t want to be scared of him. Months worth of memories ran through her head, only to be counteracted every time by that dark look on his face as he tore her kidnappers apart. Granted, they’d done something that he didn’t like, but was murder really the proper response?

More than that, the look on his face after he’d killed them was disturbing. There was no satisfaction or remorse. He wasn’t someone who gained satisfaction out of killing, like a psychopath, but he also felt no pain at the loss of human life.

It was like he didn’t see the world as “real.” But who didn’t see reality as “real”? Was there even such a person?

It was like there were two Quartas, Quarta the older brother, and Quarta the…

Her train of thought was interrupted by a voice.

“How interesting. Both people I wanted to see, both in the same place at once.”

Quarta froze in fear. There wasn’t a lot that made him afraid, but that voice… there was something about it that made his body yell “be careful!”, a sort of instinctive reaction to a being much greater than any he’d ever met.

He whirled around to see a terrifying presence, radiating the same amount of power he’d exhibited if not more. It was a woman with purple skin, wearing what seemed like a torn robe. On her head were two long horns, also purple, and two black batlike wings kept her afloat in the air.

“A stereotypical demon king. How cliche,” Quarta said with grit teeth. He didn’t know why, but something about this demon’s presence…

“We haven’t met yet, have we?” the demon said seductively.

“...should we have? I’d imagine anyone that looks like you would be someone firmly imprinted onto my mind.”

“Mm… You haven’t met me, but I’ve definitely met you. I know a lot about you.”

“...you know nothing about me.”

“Really?”

The demon laughed.

“Hello, John. We have a lot to talk about.”